The music from Jeremy’s set pumped through the store, vibrating the walls upstairs. I’d spent the last half hour staring at the baby picture of me with Georgia. I kept studying it, hoping to get some answers — as if her expression would give something away or she’d suddenly open her eyes and speak. There was a knock on the door and Lou poked his head in my room. “Can I come in?”
“Yeah,” I said and tucked the photo under my pillow, safe with the other picture of Lou as a toddler, peeking through Georgia’s legs. Lou stayed in the doorway, leaning against the frame. His lanky body stretched along most of it. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“Thanks,” I said sarcastically.
“Your set was good. Up till the last song.” Stepping into my room, Lou sat on the floor cross-legged, like how he used to when we were kids.
“Guess you talked to Dad,” I said. “He told you about what he signed? That agreement?”
Lou nodded.
I frowned at him. “I can’t believe he did that.”
“I can,” Lou replied. “He thought he was doing the right thing.”
I glowered at Lou. “He lied to us. He signed away our chance to get to know her.”
“He was looking out for us.”
I snorted. “He made it impossible for us to have anything to do with her.”
Lou looked at me, pissed off. “She gave him the contract, not the other way around.”
I clenched my jaw, not sure who I was angrier at: Dad for signing or Lou for arguing with me. “She’s our mom. He can’t just sign away a future.” That was what bothered me the most. It was so final. He’d shut the door on me ever getting to know Georgia. He was my dad, he should have known better.
“Dizz! It wasn’t Dad, it was Georgia. Why aren’t you mad at her?”
“I am! I’m mad at everyone. It’s all bullshit.” I waved my arms in the air. “But she’s not here. Dad is.”
“That’s a lot of misplaced anger,” Lou muttered.
I huffed at him. “What do you care, anyway? You’re always saying she doesn’t matter to you.”
“I don’t care about her. But she pulled some sneaky legal manoeuvre and I’m pissed off. One more reason I don’t want anything to do with her.” He took a breath and looked at me. “And I’m pissed at you, too, for being mad at Dad,” he added.
We sat in stony silence, the beat of the music from downstairs filling the quiet. “Maybe it wasn’t her idea. Maybe she was forced to sign it.”
Lou arched an eyebrow. “Held at gunpoint and forced to sign? I don’t think so.”
“Is it so bad to want to believe she didn’t disown us?” I asked him. It might have been from the pressure of DJing or the argument with Dad and Lou, but tears prickled behind my eyes. “I don’t want to believe the worst about her.”
The music downstairs stopped and Jeremy’s amplified voice thanked everyone for coming. “I better get down there,” Lou muttered. He stood up and looked at me. “You can’t keep using her music.”
I raised my chin defiantly. That was what Dad wanted, too, for us to slink away. The easy thing would be to forget about Georgia, put her records back on Dad’s shelf, hide the photos, and pretend she meant nothing to me. Lou had done that, or he claimed he had. Would I feel better if I did that? Or was it like pulling a blanket over my head? It would work for a while, but eventually, I’d need to come up for air.
“Dizzy,” he said warningly. “I’m serious. There was more in the papers, stuff Dad didn’t tell you. It’s bad for all of us if you keep stirring things up.”
I hadn’t stirred anything up, not yet. He gave me a final glance, heavy with warning, and then left. His feet pounded down the stairs to the store for a final round of goodbyes and to help Jeremy put the store back together. I slid lower on my bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to make sense of what he’d meant.
He’d only been gone a few minutes when there was another knock on my door, more tentative than Lou’s. “Dizzy?” Maya called softly. “Can I come in?”
“Yeah,” I said. She opened the door gently and came inside. Her face was flushed from dancing. I curled my legs in to make room for her on my bed.
“Are you feeling better?” she asked, sitting down.
The secret swelled in my chest. It rose and fell like a breath. I couldn’t keep it bottled up inside me. I needed my best friend to know what was going on. But, if I blurted it out, told her about who my mom was and why she’d never come back, it would change things. Maya might be mad I’d kept the truth from her, or maybe she wouldn’t believe me.
There was noise downstairs, the door chime beeping steadily as people left. Furniture scraped the floor as it was moved into place. I swallowed, suddenly feeling shaky. I’d shared lots of my deepest secrets with Maya — embarrassing moments, who I had crushes on, how much I wanted to be a DJ — but this one was so big, it was burning a hole in my throat. “I need to tell you something,” I began. “This is going to sound crazy.” I paused, unsure about where to start. I pulled the photos from under my pillow. I lay the photo in front of her and watched her face. “That’s me.” I pointed to the baby.
She blinked and bent closer to the picture. “Is that your mom?”
“Yeah,” I said, swallowing. “Can you tell who she is?”
Maya scrunched her eyebrows together, taking a closer look. “No.”
“She was Georgia Hay then. She changed her name to Waters later.”
“Georgia Waters.” Maya’s jaw dropped. “Georgia Waters?”
“Yeah.” I exhaled. The secret was out. “And this one” — I pushed the one of Lou, Dad, and pregnant Georgia to her; Georgia’s red hair hung long on either side of her face — “is everyone. She’s pregnant with me.”
Maya swore under her breath. “Is this — are you serious?” she looked at me doubtfully. “Is this a prank?”
I shook my head.
She gaped at me. “Georgia Waters is your mom?”
“I can show you my birth certificate, if you want. It says Georgia Hay, but it’s her.”
She was quiet for a while, digesting it. She picked up the photo of Georgia holding me and examined it, then looked at me, unsure. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“Dad didn’t want us to tell people. He still doesn’t. You have to promise to keep it a secret. You can’t tell anyone,” I pleaded. “Not your mom, no one!”
“I won’t, I swear. But …” She shook her head. Her mind was probably spinning with questions. “Why don’t you see her? Why is it such a big secret? God, Dizzy.” Maya looked at me dumbstruck. “She’s loaded. You should be living in a mansion somewhere.”
“She left when I was a baby, before she was famous. Just disappeared one day. Dad didn’t hear from her for years, and then one day, when I was about five, she showed up. It was just before ‘I Will Run’ came out.” That hit song had propelled her to international fame.
Maya looked at me expectantly. “And then?”
“That’s it. That’s the last time we heard from her.”
“You’re kidding? She’s never visited or called or anything since then?”
I shook my head. “It’s like we don’t exist to her. Dad signed something when she came back the last time, some kind of agreement. We can’t ever talk about her or try to see her.” An angry lump made it hard to swallow. He’d signed away my right to ever know her.
“Wow.” We were both quiet for a few minutes. Maya looked at me, her eyes filled with sympathy. “It’s hard to believe. I mean, to have her as your mom and keep it a secret. It’s nuts, right? You’d think someone would have figured it out by now.” Maya sighed, shaking her head in shock. She twisted a tendril of hair around her finger. She frowned and studied the photos again. “I can’t believe it. You’re Georgia Waters’s daughter!”
“Are you mad I never told you?”
Maya furrowed her brow. “No, but I keep thinking you’re going to say, ‘Just joking.’ You’re telling the truth, right? This isn’t some crazy practical joke.”
Part of me wished it was. In a weird way, it would have been easier to know I’d been abandoned by an ordinary person.
“It’s not a joke.” I sighed.
Maya held up the picture of Georgia holding me and studied it. “She looks so peaceful.”
“Like she’s dreaming of somewhere else,” I added quietly.
“What about when she’s in town for her concert? Do you think she’ll try to see you again? Are you going to go?”
I wanted to go, to see Georgia perform. Now that Maya knew, I wouldn’t have to go on my own. But it would mean breaking the stupid contract and going against Dad. “I’d have to keep it a secret. Dad and Lou would freak out if they found out I went.”
“We could try to get tickets online or something.” Maya screwed up her mouth and I knew she was trying to figure something out.
“We?”
“Yes, we. As if I’m letting you do this on your own.”
I wanted to lunge across the bed and hug her.
“We could take the bus into the city and find someone selling tickets,” she suggested.
I shook my head. Even though Dad paid me when I worked, most of the money went toward my phone. I knew I didn’t have enough in my bank account to buy a ticket. “They’d cost a fortune and your mom would ground you forever if she found out.” But her idea gave me hope. Maybe there was a way we could see her. As surreal as it would be to see Georgia on stage, it might be the closest I’d get to her.
Footsteps, Lou’s, from the sound of them, came upstairs. There was a knock on the door and he poked his head in. “You staying over or you want me to walk you home?” he asked Maya. She jerked upright and checked the time on her phone. “Oh, crap!” she groaned. “I better go.” Amid all the drama, I’d forgotten she was grounded. Apparently, so had she. She jumped off the bed and gave me a hug goodbye. “Call you in the morning, unless I get caught and Mom takes away my phone,” she whispered to me. “Thanks, for, um, telling me.” She shook her head in disbelief and made big eyes at me, a silent signal for Holy crap! as she left with Lou.
I listened to their footsteps retreat down the stairs and the door chime as they left. I wished I’d told Maya years ago. It felt good not to have the secret between us. Dad had been wrong about the dangers of telling people, certain people, anyway. The guys knew; why shouldn’t my best friend know, too? I slid under my covers, tucking the photos under my pillow.
There could have been a hundred reasons she’d signed that contract. She might not have known what she was signing; record companies are infamous for sketchy behaviour. I needed to know for myself that Georgia didn’t want to be a part of our lives.
A new mix of songs wove itself in and out of my dreams, one that could get the attention of Georgia.